Leavenworth students compete in finals of international competition

Several Leavenworth High School students traveled to Georgia last week to compete in the DECA International Career Development Conference.

Several Leavenworth High School students traveled to Georgia last week to compete in the DECA International Career Development Conference.

And, a team from Leavenworth made it into the finals of an event at the conference, which was May 3-6 in Atlanta.

"This is the first time we've taken a project to finals as far as we know," said Liz Anstine, an LHS teacher and DECA adviser.

DECA stands for Distributive Education Clubs of America.

Senior Mallie Rust said DECA is a competitive program for a wide range of business topics.

Rust is the president of the DECA chapter at LHS.

Sophomore Armani Hooks and junior Megan Rust, who is the sister of Mallie Rust, finished in the top 18 of about 300 teams, advancing to the finals.

They competed in a community service project event.

Hooks said the team created a 30-page report about activities that had been organized at LHS to raise money for the University of Kansas Breast Cancer Survivorship Center.

"It was a whole month of events," Hooks said of the "pink" campaign.

Anstine said the events were in partnership with the high school's student council and volleyball team.

The activities raised $5,000 for the center.

Anstine said the volleyball team raised an additional $1,000 for breast cancer research.

Hooks said he and Megan Rust made presentations about the activities during the international conference.

Anstine said about 17,000 students attended the DECA International Career Development Conference. In addition to the 50 states and some U.S. territories, a few foreign countries also were represented at the conference.

Hooks said the community service project earned second place at the DECA state conference in March in Overland Park. This qualified the team for the international conference.

Mallie Rust received first place at the state conference for a hotel and lodging management competition.

She competed in the event at the international conference. She didn't make it to the finals. But, she still was recognized at the conference for scoring in the top 10 in the test portion of the competition.

"I still got on stage," she said.

Senior Kyle Pangracs also represented LHS at the international conference. He competed in a principles of marketing event.

Sophomores Ethan Richardson and Nicole Tennant also attended the DECA International Career Development Conference to participate in the IGNITE leadership academy.

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